


rome itself was built on ruins;

by wonderwalled



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, idk i just love this ship way too much, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1659818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwalled/pseuds/wonderwalled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>so heres the story of a broken boy who falls in love with a broken boy. the story of how a boy laced with doubt and anxiety and pain sees this damaged and burnt boy the way the sun sees the moon</p>
            </blockquote>





	rome itself was built on ruins;

**Author's Note:**

> lets just say im a shit writer and leave it at that

heres the part where stiles sleeps.

its quiet but its loud, and it hurts even though it isn't supposed to. sleep only comes with a lot of jack and pieces of the future he wants to happen, but never will. he curls up tight under a too warm blanket that suffocates, pulls the air from his lungs too fast, too slow. its a confusing game and it hurts even though it isn't supposed to. 

derek sleeps the same way, one hand curled under the pillow, other hand pressed to stiles' chest, personally feeling each heartbeat reverberating in stiles’ ribcage. the difference is that derek is quite literally singed by the dramatic history that is his life, and stiles can feel that heat resonating in the little space they share. stiles can hear ragged breathing caused by nightmares derek will never speak of, riddled with passion beyond anything stiles or anyone else gives derek credit for.

when they move against each other, their bones adjust. they form to one another as the night gets darker, progressively colder, the room swimming with whiskey whispers and the remnants of the so-called love they made.

-

it hurts. it burns. 

burning burning burning

stiles knows how vodka tastes straight, knows the way he can experiment with flavours and change it and make it better, worse. he knows how it tastes laced with flat cherry soda and derek's tongue, burning and fast and burning. he knows how it settles in his stomach and makes him stable. he knows how to make it taste like heaven, taste like sin. he knows how to make it taste better than disappointment.

fuck, it burns

so heres a story for the boy with the broken heart - a poem that says these fights and this bloodshed can fade into white noise, into something resembling a whispered apology. a poem that claims heartbreak is for after midnight, and that things like this are supposed to hurt.

“stiles,” scott hums gently, “you okay?” 

heres the part where everywhere stiles looks its derekderekderek, and theres a lot to be said there. theres a prologue and a narrator and lots of bruises and teeth marks pushed to existence by desperation and loneliness and anger. theres long car rides with endless stretches of pavement and the taste of pool water that will never quite leave their lips. theres a constant thumpthumpthump of their hearts that doesn't stop even though it hurts. theres the ihateyou and the ihateyoumore and the looks that were supposed to say yourenotmylife but really said the opposite.

there’s got to be love somewhere in the mix, tangled in bedsheets and broken piano strings, stiles reminds himself. he breathes in deep and swears that he wouldn’t still be here if there wasn’t love beneath it all. 

“yeah, man. ‘m fine. just kind of amazed.” 

-

stiles is positive of a few things.

he is positive that the earth rotates on an axis and people are starving in like, 60% of the world. he knows that even mount everest is still growing up, just like he does each day (because he really is just a child still, isn't he) he knows that the rainforests are being cut down and everyone is losing a shit-ton of money. derek and alcohol aren't a good combination. they're constantly battling supernatural forces that he doesn't run from anymore. and one time, the greatest leader of all time was killed out of fear for what he could become. 

(and theres quite a lot to be said there, too)

he doesn't know, however, if the clouds ever try to protect the stars, or why the sky must be darkest right before the sun rises. he doesn't know why wood is brown or why he lives in a town where so many people die all the time. he doesn't know why his mom had to die like she did. why it couldn't be him. he doesn't know if julius caesar would have become what they thought he would, or if he deserved to die either.

he doesn't know if derek aches, burns when stiles isn't by his side. if his bones miss the curve of stiles' back, or the pattern of his breathing. doesn't know if he really wants to know, either.

-

a piece of him believes this is just the calm before the storm, this is the easy part. this is the air in his lungs instead of the pain in his chest.  
because falling in love with a broken boy at seventeen was a bad, bad, thing. 

this is not just a boy, this is a boy who kisses him in the pitch black and tastes like ash and blankets and hellfire. loves him when it feels right and can't keep track of when that is.

he loves derek all the time and its scary and its big and its not okay, its too much. its never less than excruciating and god, it fucking hurts. it burns. it aches like his bones when he hasn't slept in days trying to save lives he is too small to save.

stiles is minuscule and tiny and his voice echoes when he speaks, even in a crowded room. he is nothing next to these people, these huge creatures with powers and skills and he isnt, never could be.

so heres the part where derek makes him feel bigger. because derek doesn't like being big. derek likes to feel small; like its not all on his shoulders and if stiles can do anything, its help lift the weight that burdens him into the closed-off lonely excuse for a person he so often becomes.

stiles is just scared, because it’s always night before morning and when it storms the room shakes and derek, derek holds onto him like he’s stable ground. like stiles is somehow strong enough or big enough or brave enough to save him from the forces that threaten to break down the doors.

-

so here’s a story - about the time derek’s very metaphorical doors were broken down. and it’s sort of poetic, truly, the way the dust floated into the air, stiles wading his way into whatever derek is. the way stiles tried to ease him into speaking, into telling what he has wanted to tell for so, so fucking long; it was like watching a hurricane collide head-first into a tornado. 

stiles is, always has been, a flight-risk, flying head first into things he can’t prepare for. an innocent bystander to the continuous commotion. he’s tried to change, to be less awake and less afraid, softer and quieter with his movements.

and it’s not easy, nothing is, not anymore. not when stiles can feel derek swimming his way through his dreams, when he can taste him on his lips all hours, all seconds of the day. he tells himself not to make a home in derek, not to get warm and comfortable deep inside derek’s heart. derek is strange and beautiful, tall and strong and weak and small, a combination of the best and the worst, the monsters under the bed and the angels watching over, all at once. he’s something only stiles knows how to love.

but derek, you see, derek is just too damn brave. he doesn’t just splash, he makes a wave, and stiles knows that all too well. stiles hates it, because derek, he just tries too hard to over-compensate, to make himself feel and look stronger than he actually is. because the real derek hale isn’t so brave, truly, is he? hes weak and he’s scared and most of the time, he is burning alive. but he chooses to pretend he's not, and with all the differences and the opposites and the this can’t work, he and stiles really don't make sense.

but because it feels good, they push themselves together like two puzzle pieces that don’t quite match, placed together with a nice shove, without letting the question dangling in the air coming to life. without a single one of them just breathing it into the night.

because if this burns, that would be the inferno, and neither stiles nor derek are brave enough for that.

-

it starts with an "i hate you" and ends with a "never leave me, please". 

so heres the story about the vengeance of the seas, the eclipse of the pain and the joy and the riots and the freedoms. the dragging of their nails in the dirt, the push and pull of their heartstrings as they sit face to face. 

“i want you to go, and go be-”

“we can’t do this again, derek.”

“you’re throwing yourself away.”

“you need to stop hating yourself so much,”

“i have”

“since when?”

“since i became too busy loving you”

-

so stiles knows a lot of things, or maybe a lot of nothing. he doesn’t know much about the boy he gives himself to. he couldn’t tell you his favourite colour or the way he hums when he cooks because they claim to love, but go against every idea of traditional loving that ever existed. 

(although it has long been said that what’s done in the dark will always be brought to the light)

here’s the part where they bleed together- 

how derek silently kisses stiles, breathing him in like he’s the air, letting his scent make a home in his lungs. he plants kisses on his chest, on his hips. how stiles leaves marks all over derek’s body, good marks, marks screaming youreperfect instead of the way the scars scream yourfault. how stiles melts into the mattress, grips derek’s hair until the vibrations in their throats turn into a song. 

“fuck me,” stiles moans, and it’s supposed to be rougher than it is, and they don’t mention it but they feel what lies beneath the facade and they choose to wait before they let that skeleton fall from the closet. 

it’s times like this, when derek is a mess and stiles’ s desperate for his touch, when it changes. when it’s warmer and more real. more love instead of want, more need instead of lust. and it’s times like these when stiles gets a surge of confidence, or self-worth. he begins to believe in something.

because he is good at this. he really is. he knows derek’s body, he knows the way his back slopes and how the dimples in his spine are the perfect spots to rest his thumbs when derek fucks harder and harder and harder, derek, please and it's lovely. derek is all lovely flesh and bone and whimpers and “so amazing, stiles” and it all just works, right then.

stiles knows how to love derek. how to make him a shaking, quivering mess and how to take it slow, make it fast, whatever derek needs and wants at any given moment, it just comes naturally to stiles. he knows not to whisper too many sweet nothings, how it’s not about sound for derek, but about movement.

he knows a lot of things (and a lot of nothing), and he knows how to believe in this. 

he can shatter derek, and he can put derek together again.

and it makes it easier when they shower afterwards, and stiles feels air in his lungs again. it makes way more sense than things do when life starts to play again. when the ceiling starts to fall and the lights turn on. but stiles tries to forget about it, really. holds onto the pitch black and relishes the sun. prays that one day, it won’t matter what time of day it is for derek’s lips to taste the same. 

-

you see, stiles is only human. and he can’t figure it out, fathom it. 

they fight so many battles, they see so much pain. they are surrounded every single day by the things in the horror movies and the old folklore no one truly believes in and it’s all so blurry. he needs to learn how to take things as they come, he reminds himself to not push it away and take it all in at once. he reminds himself that he needs to learn how to handle all of this without stealing sleeping pills and a flask of vodka under his pillow.

derek tells him to picture freshman year. tells him to remember that even though it didn’t feel good then, it looks like heaven now. tells him to remember what it was like, before it was all this, so he does.

he remembers being best friends with scott and being in love with lydia. he remembers it sucking because he was on the bench but being great because he got to go to a crime scene later on and laugh with his dad and his best friend and feel like the next day was predictable and always knowing what to expect. he remembers that and it’s nice but derek isn’t there, and that doesn’t feel right. it feels like a piece is missing.

a piece that speaks like a poet when he’s feeling emotional and fucks like an animal, drives a shiny black camaro and kisses like he learned from romantic comedies.

and it’s how derek’s looking at him, saying its okay and i know you’ve fallen apart since then and i know its selfish but i am so glad this is where we are now, because i love having you here, i love you 

and yeah, stiles still knows that he shouldn’t take root in derek’s bones, but he can’t help but love the stability and strength and derek that they are.

“i think even if i knew this is what it would come to, i still would’ve chosen it. just so i could still love you.” stiles mumbles, fingers intertwining gently with derek’s. it’s starting to get a little better.

-

it is getting better, but it’s still hazy. there’s still a fog in his brain, making him lose focus more and more as seconds tick on. 

he had thought it was derek, because derek is the answer to nearly everything. the way he runs through stiles’ bloodstream and weighs down his spine, makes him confused and dizzy. how he loved him more than anything else and how derek had him so twisted, with the movement of his hands and the colours of his eyes. how derek drained him, took everything with him everywhere he went.

but its- its more than that.

derek says his name like cotton candy melting in his mouth, like sugar dissolving in his coffee. like soft piano keys on a vinyl in derek’s apartment, under warm sheets and the feeling of danger that comes with being with someone you shouldn’t be with. 

derek isn’t the pain in his heart, he’s the ease after the burn.

-

all of this is a myth. it really is, that two boys could find each other and learn to love each other when they both spent their entire lives fighting the idea of love’s mere existence.

how stiles was a broken, abandoned old building, quaking with each storm, falling slowly to pieces, and derek being the willing boy to show up and see potential in him. to put in effort to fix him and make him a better version of what he already was.

how derek said, teach me the language your bones speak as you sleep and stiles told him that the stars and the sky and the entire universe was held inside his soul.

wrong, big, scary, scary, scary. 

and maybe stiles is still broken and derek is still too brave but it’s not about that.

it’s about the part of the story where they hold each other, fingers still stained with blood.

the part where stiles is scared and his brain is racing but he sees derek and he hears derek calling his name and he breathes in and yes, there it is, air in my lungs.


End file.
